Chapter 3

Systems of Two Linear Equations in Two Variables - 3.1

What is a system of equations?

What do we mean by linear?

Our goal: Solve the system...but what exactly is a solution to a system of equations?

Example 1 Consider the system

x + 2y = 5
3x − y = 1

How many points are we looking for?

The equations are linear...that means their graphs are lines.
How many ways can two lines cross?
The next example will illustrate the Elimination Method. The goal here is to get the
equations in a form so that we can add the equations together so that one variable is
eliminated.

Example 2 Solve the system:

x + 2y = 5
3x − y = 1

Step 1: Choose a variable to eliminate

Step 2: Multiply each equation so that you have the same coefficient on each of your
elimination variables. You will need one positive, one negative.

Step 3: Add the equations together. Notice that you should have only one variable left.

Step 4: Solve for the variable you have left. You now have one coordinate of your solution.

Step 5: Substitute this part of your solution into any of your equations and solve for the
other coordinate.
Example 3 Solve the system:
3x + 2y = 4
2x − 5y = 9

Example 4 Solve the system:

0.5x + 0.2y = −0.7
0.2x + 0.3y = 0.6
So far, all of the systems have had exactly one solution. Let’s consider the cases when we
have either an infinite number of solutions or no solutions.

Example 5 Solve the system:

3x + 4y = 2
−6x − 8y = −2

Example 6 Solve the system:

2 3 1
x− y =
3 4 2
−8x + 9y = −6
Using Matrices to Solve Systems of Equations - 3.2
What is a matrix?

" #
2 −1 0 3
Example 1
1 5 2 17

How can we use this to represent a system of equations?

Every system of equations can be represented by a matrix by using the following rules.
Rules:
1. Line up your equations with all the variables in the same order on the left side of the
equal sign.
2. Each equation goes into a single row.
3. Keep only the numbers (remember that subtraction means negative).

Example 2 Represent the system of equations as a matrix:

2x − 3y = 3
x + 4y = 7

Once we have the system in a matrix, we’ll use the calculator to put the matrix into
reduced row echelon form

Rules for rref(:

1. First nonzero entry in each row is 1.
2. Each leading 1 is to the right of the leading 1 in the row above.
3. Any column with a leading 1 has 0 everywhere else.
Next, how do we get the calculator to give us rref? Use the matrix
" #
2 −3 3
1 4 7
as an example:

We first have to store the matrix:

On the TI-83/84:
1. Press Matrix
2. Press the right arrow until EDIT is highlighted, then press ENTER
You will now be editing the matrix A.
3. Enter the dimensions of the matrix (remember that rows go first)
4. Enter the values for the entries. (You can move around in the matrix
with your arrow keys, or you can type a number and press enter to
move to the next entry
You have now saved the above matrix as [A].
If you want to see your matrix on the screen:
1. Press Matrix
2. NAMES should be highlighted, with 1. highlighted. 1. is the matrix [A],
and you can see that it is a 2 x 3 matrix.
3. Press Enter and the calculator goes back to the home screen with [A]
in your entry line.
4. Press Enter again, and the calculator shows you what you have stored
as matrix ’A’
Now, we want the calculator to put this into reduced row echelon form for us.
1. Press Matrix
2. Press the right arrow until MATH is highlighted.
3. Scroll down to option B: rref(
(Make sure to go to rref and not ref)
4. Press Enter. This should go back to the home screen and have rref( in your entry line.
5. You now have to tell it which matrix to use. Press Matrix to get your list of stored
matrices.
6. Number 1 should be highlighted. If A is the matrix you want, you only have to press
Enter again. If you want to row reduce another matrix, scroll down to the correct
matrix, and press Enter
7. This should take you back to your home screen, and you should now have
rref([A]
in the entry line. Close the ) and press Enter
The matrix will now be in reduced row echelon form.

Now, how does the rref of the matrix give us the solution to the system? Turn the matrix
back into a system of equations:
1. Each row becomes an equation.
2. The variables are in the same order as when you put them into the matrix (on the left
side).
3. The last column is the constant on the right side of the equal sign.

Note that we have a ”perfect” stair-step. Each variable has a leading 1. In this case, we
have exactly one solution and we have only to look at the right column for the solution.
Example 3 Solve the system:
5x + 2y = −7
2x + 3y = 6

Example 4 Solve the system:

2x + y = 1
−5x + 2y = −4

Example 5 Solve the system:

x − 2y + 3z = 7
2x + y + z = 4
−3x + 2y − 2z = −10

We can have any number of equations in our systems:

Example 6 Solve the system:

2x + 3y = 21
−9x − 4y = 29
12x + 7y = −17

If we are using our calculator to do the Gauss-Jordan Elimination (i.e. to put it into reduced
row echelon form), we can have more variables, and we don’t have to worry about arithmetic
with fractions and decimals any more:

Example 7 Solve the system:

.6x + .5y + .3z = 0
−.8x + .2z = −1.4
2 1 1 1
x+ y− z =−
3 2 3 2

What happens if we do not have the ”perfect” stair-step?

There are two ways it can fail:

Example 8 Solve the system:

2x − 3y + z = 5
x+y−z =2
3x − 2y = 1
Example 9 Solve the system:
x − y + 6z = 1
3x + y + 2z = 11
−3x − 2y + 2z = −13

Example 10 Solve the system:

3x − 3y − 6z = −3
2x − 2y − 4z = −2
−2x + 3y + z = 7

Example 11 Solve the system:

7r + 2s − 2t − 4u + 3v = 8
−3r − 3s + 2u + v = −1
4r − s − 8t + 20v = 1
Very Important... There are two bad habits we need to be sure to break -
1. Looking at the right side column and writing it as our answer.
2. Seeing a row of 0s, and immediately assuming we have infinitely many solutions.

Example 12 Suppose the following matrices came out of the rref( command. What is the
solution to the system?
 
1 0 2
 0 1 −3 
 
0 0 0

 
1 0 2 3
 0 1 −1 2 
 
0 0 0 0

 
1 0 1 0

 0 1 2 0 

0 0 0 1
 
 
0 0 0 0

" #
1 0 1 3 5
0 1 2 0 −3
Applications of Systems of Linear Equations - 3.3
In each of the following, a system of linear equations can be made to represent the situation.
Once we have the system of equations, a matrix can be used to solve the problem.

Example 1 A math test worth 100 points will have 35 questions on it. Some questions will
be worth 2 points and some will be worth 4 points. How many of each type will there be?

Example 2 Sandy’s Seafood Shoppe sells combination plates. The large plate has 1 cup
of clams and 2 cups of shrimp, and the deluxe plate has 1.5 cups of clams and 4 cups of
shrimp. Saturday night, they had 131 cups of clams and 324 cups of shrimp. How many of
each plate can they prepare?
Example 3 A landscaping company placed two orders with a nursery. The first order was
for 13 bushes and 4 trees and totaled $487. The second order was for 6 bushes and 2 trees
and totaled $232. The bills do not list the per-item price. What were the costs of one bush
and one tree?

Example 4 A citrus company completes the preparation of its products by cleaning, filling
and labeling bottles. Each case of apple juice requires 10 minutes in the cleaning machine,
4 minutes in the filling machine, and 2 minutes in the labeling machine. For each case of
tomato juice, the times are 12 minutes of cleaning, 4 minutes of filling, and 1 minute of
labeling. Pineapple juice requires 9 minutes of cleaning, 6 minutes of filling, and 1 minute
of labeling per case. If the company runs the cleaning machine for 381 minutes, the filling
machine for 162 minutes and the labeling machine for 58 minutes, how many cases of each
type of juice are prepared?
Example 5 Kelly’s Karpet Kleaners sells rug-cleaning machines. The EZ model weighs 10
pounds and comes in a 10-cubic-foot box. The compact model weighs 20 pounds and comes
in an 8-cubic-foot box. The commercial model weighs 60 pounds and comes in a 28-cubic-
foot box. Each of Kelly’s delivery vans has 248 cubic feet of space and can hold a maximum
of 440 pounds. In order for a van to be fully loaded it will carry 21 boxes total. How many
of each model will be in the van?

The next several examples will involve ’relational’ equations. These equations can be a
little more difficult to determine. Let’s practice turning English phrases into mathematical
expressions/equations. before tackling the more difficult word problems.

Example 6 Joe has twice as many dogs as cats.

Example 7 Sam has 4 less books than Jim.

Example 8 Jim is 3 more than twice as old as Mike.

Now let’s solve some problems...

Example 9 The 8th grade class at a local middle school has 73 more students than the 7th
grade class. If there are 1329 students at this school, how many are in each grade?

Example 10 Sally made uniforms for a local high school’s volleyball and football teams.
It took her 22 minutes to sew the seams on a volleyball uniform and 56 to sew a football
uniform, and she sewed for a total of 2,090 minutes. If there were 3 times as many football
uniforms as volleyball, how many of each did she sew?
Example 11 A student club sponsored a jazz concert and charged $3 for students, $5 for
faculty, and $8 for the general public. The total ticket sales amounted to $2542. Three times
as many students bought tickets as faculty. The general public bought twice as many tickets
as did the students. How many tickets were sold to each group?

Example 12 A student has money in three accounts that pay 5%, 7%, and 8% in effective
annual interest. She has five times as much invested at 8% as she does at 5%. She has a
total of $3500 invested and earned $258.11 in interest last year. How much does she have in
each account?